May 10, 2010

Microsoft launches Office 2010 on Wednesday 12 May 2010 at 11am EDT in NBC Studios, New York. Business customers which make up 90 percent of Office customers, can begin purchasing the software while small businesses and consumers will have to wait till June for the suite to hit the stores.

Office generated US$19 billion in sales in fiscal 2009, which accounted for more than a third of Microsoft’s US$58 billion in sales for the year. It brought in more than half of the company’s operating profit – US$12 billion out of the overall US$20 billion.

According to Microsoft, about 500 million people use Office, many of them still on Office 2003 or older versions. While half the users may have purchased the software legitimately, the others have not, with many of them using pirated versions.

I believe the availability of free competitors, mainly in the form of Google Docs, has forced Microsoft to price its suite at a more affordable level. The Standard Edition of Office 2007, containing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, debuted with a suggested retail price of US$399. Now, the price for Office 2010 Home and Business, which includes those four apps plus the note-taking program OneNote, costs as little as US$199.

For consumer users, which earned Office US1.8 billion in fiscal 2009, this is a much more affordable price tag, especially if upgrading from the 2003 version or earlier.

May 9, 2010

Adobe CS5 Master Collection at US$2599

This is the Singapore leg of Adobe’s CS5 roadshow which will also be held in Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia. It’s been one and a half years since the CS4 roadshow on 14 Nov 2008. Expect the usual song and dance by Adobe’s product evangelists. Attendees will probably be keen to get the pulse of Flash’s future in view of the current spat with Apple. Doubt if they will hear anything but the official party line laid down by CEO Shantanu Narayen. Looking at how things are moving … or not moving … forget about Flash on Apple iPhone and iPad for the foreseeable future.